Growing An Automation Business

[uhhfeef]

Couple of BIG wins​

• @Andy Black is now a paid customer!! Thank you so much for your support and trusting me with this project!
• Getting a lot more talks with clients and understanding their needs. This is helping me "sell" in a better way and I'm slowly but surely figuring out why people buy.
• Had a few great conversations with @richstone.io, who's got dev background with a lot of experience. He's also built the API for ClickFunnels, so if anyone needs any kind of backend dev advice he's the man!! Check his website it's pretty cool. (We may have something cooking pretty soon...).

Learnings​

1. I'm learning how to package my services similar to how Alex Hormozi described in his book. It looks more professional than simply pitching and hoping a prospect understands what I'm talking about.

2. A lot of new updates in the AI automation world. There's all kinds of chatbots, AI agents and even voice bots now, but I think I still prefer coding it out for now.

3. The automated cold email way works: only if you're already established and you know how to package and build your offer to a specific niche. I don't, it was a good learning experience to find out I wasted a lot of time trying to get good at that.

Manually DM'ing people has been more fruitful in terms of a response. I'm learning how to separate myself from rejection / not take it personal and trying to understand their motives. It's hard, but I need more reps in for sure.

4. Although I have "partnered" with another agency like mine and they're bringing in leads, this is still not something I have control over. If they're gone, those leads go with them. Not ideal.

5. I think I've done enough side quests to reach and interact with the market that I have to finally face marketing myself and building relationships on the internet (linkedin, my own blog, etc). Not a big fan but I guess if that's what is required right now, I have no choice but to learn.

That way I can atleast get my own leads coming in organically. I'd like to do that instead of depending on someone else to get my leads.

You're right, Andy. Took me enough time, i guess lol

Next Steps​

1. I need to understand marketing from a fundamental aspect, so going to spend a lot of time reading. That's it. Need to focus up.

I'd love to know what helped you with it. Was there a specific book, course, coaching, etc?

2. Obviously, build for clients.

Thanks for reading through!

 

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[Andy Black]

I need to understand marketing from a fundamental aspect, so going to spend a lot of time reading. That's it. Need to focus up.

No you don't. Keep engaging with people in hand to hand combat, and figuring out what they'll pay for, how to sell it to them, and how to deliver.

Be wary whenever you hear yourself say "I need", "I must", "I should", and ask yourself if it's you avoiding engaging the market.

 

[uhhfeef]

No you don't. Keep engaging with people in hand to hand combat, and figuring out what they'll pay for, how to sell it to them, and how to deliver.

Be wary whenever you hear yourself say "I need", "I must", "I should", and ask yourself if it's you avoiding engaging the market.

10000%!! By marketing I mean, getting in front of a lot of people and getting a lot more conversations in, through social media.

Not avoiding the market, just trying to find the best way I can engage with it for my own thing, and not have to rely on someone else to do it for me.

 

[Andy Black]

10000%!! By marketing I mean, getting in front of a lot of people and getting a lot more conversations in, through social media.

Not avoiding the market, just trying to find the best way I can engage with it for my own thing, and not have to rely on someone else to do it for me.

Good. It sounded like you were going to do a lot of reading rather than a lot of engaging.

 

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[Andy Black]

If you are interested in going down this route: I have a freelancer friend who recently shared with me how he went from web development Bootcamp to Big freelancer on Upwork (Basically, intentionally under-pricing in the beginning and communicating it when doing the bids until you have a few great reviews for your great work). Happy to chat more about it if you are interested in Upworking. And yes, those are the types of contracts you'll find with the skillset from your latest tool.


To add to this idea: There are a bunch of online businesses that fulfill a couple of interesting criteria:

1. They have native integrations, an API, and Zapier/integrately/etc integrations.
2. They mainly serve an audience of solopreneurs or small teams (who are more likely to need help with setting up a code or Zapier-like integration).
3. They have an online community.

On top of my mind is ClickFunnels 2.0, the org that I'm currently contracting for. They have an open Facebook group and a feature board (filterable by API; searchable by keywords like Zapier etc.) where you might be able to give a hand to users that are lost or frustrated. I'm constantly watching the Canny board and watched the FB group in the past to learn more about the users' automation/API needs and it's not like the requests are pouring in there. But if you have a system to watch places like this and then share in those groups in a valuable way how you were able to achieve some goals with your customers, there can be some synergy.

Anyway, I find your result for the weekend pretty cool

Is it open source and something that you wanted to share it with the other fastlaners, too?

@Andy Black were you able to make use of the spreadsheet?

I missed this post. Great input. I eyeballed the spreadsheet and noticed the content to help people get started is the content that got the most engagement. I'm mulling that over.

 

[uhhfeef]

Quick Update​

Started a side-side-hustle of selling a GPT I built for this space.

Remember this?

There seems to be a severe lack of devs and a lot of hype. A lot of promises and not a lot delivering.

I figured out since there is a lack of developers, I might as well help people within this space regardless of their background to catch up to speed with all the technology available.

So I scraped through and trained a custom GPT with more than 10,000 pages currently of all the new technology I know (still building it) and selling it to them.

So far 11 people reached out, but only 1 bought it. And I gave it away to 2 for free because they helped me / gave advice.

Obviously I'm not super focused on this but I just saw the gap and felt like doing something about it.

Hope you guys are doing well!

 

[Andy Black]

Quick Update​

Started a side-side-hustle of selling a GPT I built for this space.

Remember this?


I figured out since there is a lack of developers, I might as well help people within this space regardless of their background to catch up to speed with all the technology available.

So I scraped through and trained a custom GPT with more than 10,000 pages currently of all the new technology I know (still building it) and selling it to them.

So far 11 people reached out, but only 1 bought it. And I gave it away to 2 for free because they helped me / gave advice.

Obviously I'm not super focused on this but I just saw the gap and felt like doing something about it.

Hope you guys are doing well!

Interesting. I paid for the $20 ChatGPT to create a custom GPT but then heard it would be in the outline domain. Is that the case?

Also, if a subject matter expert has a knowledge base then what could they do with that? Maybe loads of blog posts or articles on their website, or social media posts, etc.

 

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[uhhfeef]

Interesting. I paid for the $20 ChatGPT to create a custom GPT but then heard it would be in the outline domain. Is that the case?

Meaning? Do you mean to say it will be part of openai's domain and not independent / my own?

Also, if a subject matter expert has a knowledge base then what could they do with that? Maybe loads of blog posts or articles on their website, or social media posts, etc.

yep! That's one of my goals, but atm I'm stacked with work right now, so I'm focusing on what has the most output. Conversations and learning.

 

[Andy Black]

Sent the following email out just now:


Hi <name>,

# Client reports:

It's Monday morning and I've been doing client reports.

Afeef Khan is helping me automated the reports. I'll send an update when that's done letting you know why it will be so helpful.

If you want to get your own Google Ads reports automated then you can find Afeef on LinkedIn HERE.

Afeef is a fellow fastlaneforum member who does other automations and custom GPTs so connect and have a conversation with him.

# LinkedIn updates:

1. I replied to Brandon's asked a question about adding longer-tail keywords HERE.
2. I show another reason why I cloned rather than fixed campaigns HERE.
3. I doubled the number of campaigns quickly HERE.
4. I replied to Timo who sees more ways to use Google Ads skills HERE.
5. I shared a Paid Search Manager role near Northampton HERE.
6. I replied to Timo and a few others wondering about the thinking and process behind the 5/day newsletter project HERE.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions!

Andy

 

[uhhfeef]

Thank you so much for the shoutout Andy!

It's been a pleasure working with you and I'm really grateful I got to get inside your mind and understand your POV on business and life!

Would always love to collab on future projects.

 

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